


Laying In

by BlackEyedGirl



Category: Shelter (2007)
Genre: Domestic, M/M, Post-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-17
Updated: 2008-12-17
Packaged: 2018-01-25 02:47:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1627556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackEyedGirl/pseuds/BlackEyedGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Family, too, is an act of creation. It takes time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Laying In

**Author's Note:**

> With much, much thanks to ceares for the beta, and for coming up with a painting term for the title.
> 
> Written for naiad

For his first piece of work that year, Zach takes a canvas the size of the wall, and puts Cody in the centre of it. Then he and Shaun, and then Jeanne in the car, driving away. 

*

He shares a studio space with one other girl. Her name is Clare, and she looks like every art student he ever imagined before he met one. She has pink hair to her ears, and black below that. At her roots, when she goes too long between dyes, it turns out to be a kind of dirty blonde. In the month and a half since the semester started, they've exchanged maybe two hundred words, but Zach's not sure it's her fault. They don't tend to be in the studio at the same time. He comes in early, right after leaving Cody at kindergarten, and gets in a few hours work around his morning classes. 

She's a sculptor, which is interesting. He likes to come in there in the morning and see what she's been up to, while he's been at home with Cody and Shaun. 

This afternoon, he's in the studio late. Clare looks over at him. "Zach, right?" She's smiling, mostly, so he smiles back, and then goes to his paintbrushes. She coughs. "Seriously. I've never seen you in here this late. What: mommy and daddy letting you out today?"

"My mom's dead and my dad's in San Pedro smoking himself to death."

"Jesus. You always like this? Cause I hope I would've noticed I'm sharing my space with an emo-bitch, even if he is away all the time."

She's walked over, close to him. She waves a clay-covered hand in his face, and he slaps it away irritably. It covers his hand in red clay, and she laughs.

Eventually, he laughs too. It's not her fault he's having a bad couple of days. And he could do with some company that doesn't know.

"So?" she prompts. "What's the deal?"

"I work nights. Some nights, anyway. And in between-"

His phone buzzes. The people who know Zach's number are in the single digits, so he picks up. Jeanne, near hysterics. "Zach. He ran away from me. I swear, I looked away for one minute. I thought he stopped doing this? When did he-? And I don't know where he'd go here. I don't know-"

"Relax. Relax, Jeanne, I'm on my way. Call Shaun, okay? I bet Cody's just run home. That's where he goes. I'll be back as soon as I can."

Zach hangs up, and goes hunting for his backpack and his keys. Clare calls his name before he can lift his jacket. He bites, "What?"

"Easy." She points at his hand. "Wash that off, maybe, before you go running home?"

"Thanks."

"Yeah. So, I guess I'll see you in a month or so?"

"I guess so."

Clare frowns. "I like your painting, by the way. Is the kid you?"

"He's my nephew," Zach says, and runs out the door before she can ask anything else. 

*

He sketches a series of drawings of pale, sullen beaches, and goes over the lines in watery blue ink. 

*

Jeanne leaves the morning after Cody runs away from her. Zach half hates her for leaving again, and is half glad. Cody is calmer when she isn't there. When she isn't there, Cody sleeps in his own bed, and eats breakfast in the morning before kindergarten with a smile on his face. Last night he had crept into the bed between Zach and Shaun, and demanded chocolate for breakfast if he was going to go to school at all. Zach had been relieved when Jeanne left.

Shaun looks at him across the table. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm- Yeah. I'm fine."

"Zach."

"I'm fine, Shaun, leave it alone. Worry about Cody."

"Cody's gonna be fine."

"He ran away from his mom. He can't keep- He's gonna get lost."

"He didn't run away. He ran back here. He ran _home_ , Zach. You know what I would have given to-"

"He's confused. He's six, Shaun, and he's confused."

"No, he's not. I hate that word anyway. Confused. Like he doesn't know exactly who raised him."

"It's not the same thing. And you know that. You're the one who can't hear the word dad without sticking `step' in front of it every time."

"And there's a reason for that. Just like there's a reason Cody ran away from Jeanne, and a reason he ran back here. He's not confused. You might be."

"I'm not. I'm really not. I kind of wish I was."

Zach wants to take it back right after he says it, even though Shaun can't possibly know what he meant. He kisses Shaun's cheek, and rests his hand on Shaun's hip as he turns to leave. Shaun shifts to block him, and kiss him properly - lips and tongue and tangled limbs. He asks, "You're coming back?"

"I just need to grab something from my studio. Yesterday-"

"Yeah. Yeah, go. I'll be here when you get back.

*

Shaun writes like Zach paints - always straight from life. The first draft of his new novel is almost complete, and he does not know, yet, what the ending might be.

*

Clare creeps beside him in class a few days afterwards, dragging a few of her friends along. Their schedules overlap a little, even with their different mediums and interests, because there's only so much variety in first year courses. 

She reminds him of Tori, a bit, though they really have nothing in common. It's the way she smiles, persistent and kind of resigned, when he slides down the row to leave them room.

"Zach," she says, "I brought you some company."

"Yeah."

"Yeah."

He vaguely recognises some of them from his other classes. There's the guy who paints stuff that looks like biblical illuminations. But with sex and guns and drugs. Clare's quiet friend who's been painting a series of abstract pieces - reds and blacks on two-foot by two-foot frames. He doesn't know the other two, and doesn't want to know why Clare is grinning so broadly.

She pokes him in the arm. "How's your nephew?"

"Fine." Zach busies himself with pulling his pencils out of his backpack, along with a new notebook. 

She ignores all the signals, and introduces him to her friends. Mitch, Carole, Sammy, Daniel. Shaun keeps telling him to meet new people, to go and live a little. Zach doesn't really think there's room in his life for anybody else. But he tries. He smiles, and nods, and attempts not to think too much about the questioning glance Clare throws Daniel, and the speculative look in her eyes.

*

He still draws the Vincent Thomas Bridge black-silhouetted against a yellowing sky. The pair of figures on it are blurry, indistinct. When Clare says, _she looks like she's jumping_ , Zach doesn't correct her.

*

Zach's faculty mentor is a guy in his late forties who looks a little bit like Shaun's dad (step-dad). Zach immediately feels guilty, and has no idea why. It's not like he corrupted Shaun - if anything, he was the one corrupted. Then he feels bad for thinking that about Shaun, even in his own head. And then Professor Miller is coughing politely at him. "Zach?"

"Yeah. Yes, sorry, Professor."

"Okay. So, your courses for next semester."

"I've pretty much already picked them."

"Yes?"

"Well, they're kind of picked for me anyway, aren't they? I mean, I have to do Alternative Practices, and one of the critical studies, as well as my independent study. That doesn't leave a whole lot of room for-"

"Zach. There's always room for some breadth in your education. How about something a little off the beaten track? Your work shows a lot of promise, and it also shows..."

"Shows what?"

"There's a lot going on up there. Take a social science unit, or one of the humanities. Something that's going to make you think about what you're painting. How about..." He scanned down the list of courses. "This one. Gendered art."

Zach can't help his flinch. He knows. Everyone knows. He fills a fucking quota, or something. Racial and gender mix needs sexuality added to it nowadays. It's not like he's the only one. He's not even the only one in first year art. There's still a neon sign over his head, like on the San Pedro waterfront. He doesn't have the words to say: this isn't political. It isn't about the unused voice, or every guy I didn't fuck in high school, while I was clumsily learning the curves of Tori's body. It's not even always about Shaun. Art is selfish, and personal - it only wants a way onto the page. But he can't tell the Professor that. He paints, he doesn't know the words. 

*

He paints over a blank canvas in various shades of grey. It looks nearly white from a distance, but come closer and it's a mess of old patterns.

*

Zach can only pick up a few shifts here and there, between class and looking after Cody. Every so often, when money gets tight, and he's on top of his course load, he takes a few long shifts in a row. And every time, they have this fight. Because Zach has never had enough money, and Shaun has never had too little. 

"I'm not your _wife_ , or whatever, Shaun."

"No, but I am here every day, looking after your nephew."

"And that means, what, that I'm using you?"

Shaun steps back like he's been hit. "No. God, no, I didn't mean that. But he's your nephew, and I love him like he's mine, and I look out for him like he's mine, which gives me the right to-"

"To _what_?"

"To pay the goddamn rent, Zach! I have it, and you don't, so just let me... will you just let me do this? I went to school, and Larry paid for the whole thing. I haven't worked a full day in my life. Let me do this."

"You work."

"Zach."

"The book is work, Shaun. Don't pretend that it's not."

Shaun shrugs, and turns his back on Zach, going back to the pot of chilli. It smells great - warm and spicy - and maybe that's the reason Zach takes the steps. He rests his head on Shaun's shoulder, pressing his face into the worn fabric of his shirt. His arms are trapped in between his chest and Shaun's back, and neither of them moves to make it an embrace. Zach just stays there, leaning on Shaun like a pillar. 

Cody finds them like that a little later, and fits his small body in between them. Then, they turn, catching him in their joined arms. 

*

At Thanksgiving, Cody is asked to draw his family in kindergarten. He draws himself in the middle, the way kids do. Then Zach and Shaun on either side, holding his hands. He draws the dog he keeps asking for, because he's a smart kid. Then Gabe, close, and Dad farther, and Jeanne farther still.

*

Gabe visits during a long weekend. The first thing he says to Zach is: "Are you and big brother having a fight?"

"What? No, it's cool. Everything's cool."

"Yeah? Cause it _really_ doesn't look that way."

"How do you mean?"

"I mean, normally I have to walk in here with my eyes closed, in case I catch my best friend and my brother doing things I really don't want to see. I love you both, but you're like sickeningly into each other. Usually. So this is... Is everything okay? You need some alone time? I can take Codes away for a few hours, if it's just a case of blue balls."

"It's not."

"But it is something."

"Can we not do this right now? Can we just-"

Gabe has been Zach's best friend since they were eight. He nods, wraps his arm around Zach, and steers him into the car. Zach rests his head on the dash, while Gabe liberates the pair of boards, and loads them into the car. 

Gabe doesn't ask where the best waves are; he drives to the spot Zach would have told him anyway. By the time they have the suits on, and the board lashes strapped, Zach can laugh. "You still remember how to do this?"

"Do you? Or have you been too busy painting masterpieces and screwing my brother?"

"In that order?" Zach asks.

"Maybe." Gabe whoops a laugh, and lifts his board, running to beat Zach to the ocean. 

The salt spray hits like a slap, and Zach shakes his head against it. The view from the ground is narrow: Cody, Shaun, and the end of his paintbrush. On the ocean, the world opens up. The horizon stretches on forever, and he could drown. He could drown, he could drown, he could drown. The leash tugs on his ankle, and Gabe is shouting. 

"Zach!"

The waves carry him up, and down again, and Gabe disappears in the splash. When Zach resurfaces, he breathes in. "Yeah. It's cool, Gabe. Everything's cool."

On the beach, Gabe collapses beside him, and the sand sticks to his cheek. He grins, wide and open, and doesn't wipe it off. Zach rolls to look at the sky, and the wide open world stretching away from him.

*

 _You don't always have to paint oceans and bridges_ , she tells him. _There are colours outside black and blue_. Zach throws up his hands, and paints Clare and Sammy, cherry pink and sunset yellow, lying on the green campus grass.

*

He's heading out of class, tagging behind the others. Most of them have to go back in again in an hour, so normally they just crash near the benches outside the lecture hall. Sometimes they picnic, in between Clare's gossip and Danny's complaints about Clare's gossip. Zach contributes most of a box of cookies, painstakingly shaped by Cody's small hands, and salvaged with Shaun's.

He's lying back against the foot of the bench, looking at the birds as they cross the sky. Zach hears his name being called. His heart has kicked to pounding even before he's sitting up enough to see Shaun's face. 

Cody crashes into him full-length. "Zach, Zach, Zach."

"I'm sorry," Shaun says. "I couldn't get him- Something happened at school."

Cody's hands are clasped together behind Zach's neck, and his face is wet with tears. He stumbles out, "Meg's sick."

Meg is one of Cody's friends at kindergarten. She's been to the house a few times, and Shaun has made a few teasing comments about Cody's fondness for her, but that's it. Zach meets Shaun's eyes over Cody's shoulder.

"She's in the hospital," Shaun says. "Out swimming with her folks and got caught in something. Nearly drowned, poor kid, but she'll be fine."

"I'm sorry, buddy," Zach says, murmuring it against Cody's hair. "I know she's-"

"What if you fell?" Cody asks, a hiccup trapped in his voice. "When you're with Uncle Gabe, or Shaun? Would you drown?"

"Hey. Hey, Cody, no. We're... we're really careful, okay? And we're all really good swimmers."

"Meg's a good swimmer too. She got her badge. She was gonna help me get-" He dissolves into sobbing again, and Zach is creeping closer to joining him.

Shaun sits on the ground beside them. Zach can see his hand make a little abortive motion towards Zach's own. He grabs it, firmly. Zach says, "Cody. Cody, hey, c'mere." He turns Cody around so he's sitting on Zach's lap, with his back against Shaun. "I'm really sorry about Meg. Shaun or me'll take you over there to see her, if her parents are okay with it. But I promise, nothing's gonna happen to me."

"Or Shaun?"

"Or Shaun, or you, or Gabe. We look out for each other, okay? That's what we'll do."

Cody nods, and his head butts Zach's shoulder. Zach stands, with his arms still wrapped around Cody, and Shaun a silent reassurance on the other side. He hands Cody over to Shaun, and turns.

The others are watching him. Clare says, "So, that's your nephew, huh?"

"This is my nephew. Cody. And this is Shaun." Shaun nods at them, still mostly focussed on Cody, but too polite to ignore the introduction.

Zach says, "I have to go home. Morris'll understand, right?"

They all nod, hurriedly. 

Zach nods, and repeats it without the tone of inquiry. "Yeah. I have to go home." Cody allows Shaun to lower him to the ground, and grabs both of their hands to walk across the campus. Shaun looks at Zach above Cody's head, question in his eyes. Zach shrugs, and lets Cody borrow his hand to wipe the last tears away.

*

Zach has always liked drawing cities. LA is a sprawl, but there's something about it, to paint. There's colour in the lights, even when the city is lost under the smog. Zach wants to go down the Strip with his tags. He doesn't; he paints it instead.

*

Shaun says Zach has trust issues. Or, he doesn't say that, he frowns, and hugs Cody tightly, and lies in silence beside Zach in the bed. He says, "You never tell me where your head is, man. You always make me guess."

"I don't mean to."

"I know you don't. I know why you do it. I just wish-" Shaun trails off, lost in the kind of silence Zach always knew they would end up with. 

"I'm going to do something," Zach confesses. He turns his head into the pillow. 

Shaun reaches out his hand, and touches Zach's bare shoulder. He rubs at the tight muscle and says, "What?"

"I don't know. Just- something. This is _important_ , and I- I can't risk it. Not for something that isn't."

"What is it you think's gonna happen, babe? What do you want to say?"

"I don't know. I don't know what it is, it's just-"

"Something."

"Yeah."

"Sword of Damocles," Shaun says, looking up at their ceiling. 

"Something like that."

Shaun wraps his arms around Zach, and rolls them over, so when Zach looks up all he can see are Shaun's eyes. There's less desperation in their kisses now, less feeling like maybe he might die if Shaun doesn't kiss him, or die if he does. Still, it takes his breath away for a moment, seeing the stars in Shaun's pale eyes. Shaun covers Zach's head with his hands, lying halfway on top of him. Shaun whispers, "Then it can take me out first."

*

 _A woman, finally_ , is what she says when she sees the last one. It's the first time Zach's painted his mother in years. Her warm eyes, and sympathetic smile, and the little lines of concern on her brow. The legacy she would pass to Zach - to be unable to like without loving, unable to love without protecting. _Is she sad?_ Clare asks. _She isn't lonely_ , Zach tells her.

*

Clare doesn't believe it when he tells her. Zach doesn't believe that he's telling her. 

"Really. One guy?"

"One girl too, so what?"

"One _girl_?"

"One, you know. I mean, kissing and stuff, but only one..."

"So how do you know?" Zach looks at her, and something must show on his face, because she laughs, and holds up her hands. "Not that you're gay, moron. _I_ could've told you that. That he's the right guy."

Zach shrugs. "How does anyone know?"

"Trial and error." Clare grins, and demonstrates her philosophy on the lump of clay in front of her. She crushes this attempt in her neat hands, and reshapes it into a loose figure again. It's more evocative of human shape than true to it. Zach likes the sentiment, but every man he draws nowadays comes out exactly as Shaun. He knows. 

*

Zach's sketchbook is full of drawings of Shaun. Shaun asleep on the couch, Shaun singing along to Cody's CDs in the kitchen, Shaun on his surfboard. When he paints the two of them together, he always paints Shaun so much taller, and is always surprised when he realises that it's not true.

*

The semester ends mid-December. Zach meets with Professor Miller again, and agrees that maybe he could try Gendered Art and see where it takes him. In the meantime, there's Alternative Practices, and public art. Zach has a few weeks off to think about that, and the long bare walls near their house. 

The studio is still open, and Clare is inside, with a few of the others perched around the benches, watching. Clare sings out his name when he opens the door. "Zach!"

"Hey, Clare. Hey guys."

"Zach. Come out with us. We're gonna celebrate being young and free and artists."

He laughs, because she sounds drunk already, and he knows that she isn't. Not yet, not while she's still around the work. For bohemian artists, they're all pretty careful about the possibility of fucking up their pieces with altered states. Except Mitch. Mitch swears blind that there's no way Bosch painted like that without some pretty good drugs, and Mitch is gonna follow his example. Zach just doesn't think that he wants to be climbing ladders to reach the top of his canvas stoned out of his mind. 

Danny smiles at him. "C'mon, Zach."

"Is it Cody?" Clare asks. "We don't need to be out late. Or you can invite Shaun, if you have someone to watch Cody. You just..."

"Need to relax?" Zach inserts. "I've been told."

"So?"

He says, "Yeah, okay," and feels kind of guilty when he sees surprise light up in her eyes. 

The club is loud, and too warm, but Zach finds himself dancing between Clare and Danny. Clare spins herself round in his hand, and Danny's arm is solid against his back. The buzz of alcohol goes pleasantly to Zach's head. He finds himself thinking about Shaun, and Cody. He tells Clare this, and watches her expression soften. Then she pokes him in the arm. "Okay, old-before-your-time, off with you."

"Hmm?"

"I'm calling you a cab, before you get maudlin and weepy on me. Mitch, give me a hand?" She steers him outside, into a waiting cab. Zach's nowhere near drunk enough to forget where he lives, although he is momentarily distracted into a hunt for his camera, to catch this view of the moon. The cab driver just laughs at him, and lets him take the photo before he starts the drive home. 

Zach opens the front door quietly, and creeps to Cody's room. Cody's face is soft in sleep, unguarded. He has a plush dolphin clutched to his chest, but otherwise is untroubled. Zach brushes a kiss against his temple, careful not to wake him.

Shaun, though, is curled onto his side. His back is one tanned line against the sheets. Zach slips in beside him, but Shaun's eyes open. He blinks at Zach. "Hey. Good night?"

"Good enough. I missed you."

Shaun's lips part, some question on them. He shakes his head, and just pulls Zach in. "Tell me all about it in the morning."

"Okay. Love you."

"Yeah," Shaun says, almost like a question. Then, when Zach settles his head on Shaun's chest, "Yeah, I love you too."

*

Sunrises and sunsets are an artist's bread-and-butter. Zach paints them one after another: suns rising over the ocean, over the bridge, over college, and over the park. The sunsets are reserved for the view from the house, every night before he puts Cody to bed, and walks over to Shaun.

*

When Zach wakes up, Shaun is watching him. This isn't without precedent, but it makes him mouth the question: what? Shaun kisses the word away, spinning them over so Zach is braced above him. Shaun looks at the ceiling, and then back at him. "What?" Zach asks again.

"Nothing. How was your night?"

"Good. I missed you, though. We should both go, next time. Meg's mom said she'd take Cody anytime. So did Gabe, for that matter. Though his reasons were more... Anyway. We should go out."

Shaun laughs. "What got into you? Between this, and last night..."

"What happened last night?"

Shaun shakes his head. "I'll tell you later. So?"

"Nothing. I'm just- I got through the semester. And Clare and the guys wanted to... And we... You and me, we. And Cody."

"We got through it too?"

"Something like that, yeah."

"Oh, ye of little faith," Shaun teases, stretching up to plant a kiss at the base of Zach's neck, and another on his lips. 

"Yeah, well," Zach says, and Shaun doesn't make him fill in the rest. Shaun knows pretty well that Zach's the most surprised of anyone that they're both still here. It's not (he kisses Shaun quickly) not anything to do with Shaun, except that Zach loves him, and he's never been allowed to love someone with so little asked in return.

Shaun turns them over again, and kisses the words onto Zach's collarbone. "I love you."

"I love you too. Did I say that already?"

"You did." Shaun's smiling that weird little smile, like Zach's missing something. "But that's okay," Shaun says. "It's good to hear."

There is a battery of thuds against their bedroom door. "Zach! Shaun!" Cody is yelling, but it's only his usual `I'm coming in now' shouts of happiness. 

Cody thumps onto the bed and Zach swings him over Shaun's legs to sit in between them.

"Zach," Cody says. "Is it the weekend now?"

"You know what, Codes? It is. And I don't have any school, or work. And neither do you." He looks at Shaun. "You want to get something done on the book? I can take Cody surfing."

Shaun frowns at him, over-serious, the creases in his brow exaggerated. He looks down at Cody. "I think he wants to get rid of me. What do you think?"

"No, no no," Cody shrieks, wrapping his arms around Shaun's neck. "You have to come with us. Promise."

"I promise," Shaun says. "But breakfast first. What d'you feel like?"

"Waffles?" Cody tries. "Or pancakes."

"Well, you go decide on that one," Shaun says, ruffling Cody's hair as he sends him out. He pulls on a t-shirt, and extends his hand to Zach. "C'mon. Snow day. Let's go play hooky."

"You sure?"

"Long as you are."

"Yeah. I'm sure."

Shaun pulls Zach up like he was Cody, easily swinging him into Shaun's chest. Shaun holds Zach's face in his hands. He closes his eyes, and waits for the press of Zach's hips before leaning close enough to kiss him. 

*

The last piece Zach paints that semester is the first he gets to exhibit. It's everything they've been trying to cure him of, but no one seems to care that much. Just the blue ocean, and three sets of feet hanging off the pier. Cody's with his toes curled and covered in sand, stretching for the water. Zach's and Shaun's on either side, barely touching, just under the surface. 


End file.
